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Monday, 14 May 2012

The long and winding road - praying the labyrinth

St Columba's Bay, Iona, labyrinth, May 2011

The labyrinth at St Beunos, retreat October 2011

Made one of those happy discoveries this evening when I stumbled across a labyrinth blog for the first time: agracingmaze, which title I reckon deserves an award for both aptness and the most apalling pun ever! Looks to be some wonderful resources and a chance to share reflections on this means of prayerful walking.

As I've written before in my old Greenpatches blog, the labyrinth has played a significant part in my own walk; sometimes affirming, always challenging. Yet, do you know, it's only as I was pondering earlier on the struggles of somebody else that the realisation is dawning a) of the tremendous distance I've travelled (spiritually as well as physically!) since those first, hesitant steps, and b) an emerging pattern: each time the labyrinth symbolising a time of transition, liminal space, a turning point, a call to go deeper with God. And yet I'd not always appreciated this at the time. I guess when you're in the thick of a situation it's easy to feel that you're going nowhere, trudging round in an endless circle. Only time, space and perspective reveal that this circle, is, in fact, a spiral. Quietly breathtaking. Cue imitation of a (happily) stranded guppy...

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Growing Greenpatches is about gardening. Like its predecessor, it's to do with cookery - finding the right ingredients. It's about creativity, searching, journeying and pilgrimage, music,poetry, prayer and procrastination. Oh - and peanuts... No, only joking; I had to find something else beginning with the same letter - old habits die hard! In short, a right old pot-pourri of all the bits'n bobs that make up the life of one very ordinary middle-aged empty nester looking to make sense of her calling, and, maybe helping other people to do the same along the way.

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Seven years ago I signed up to a Methodist Church Lent Simple Living Campaign and Greenpatches blog Mk 1 was born. In 2009 I signed on the dotted line as a Franciscan tertiary, leaving the order in early 2016. Five years ago I signed up for formation as a spiritual companion; accompanying fellow travellers as they respond to God's presence is one of life's joys. The journey continues...